Meeting YOU!!!!

I'm so excited! I'm finally getting to meet my blog friends, slowly but surely. I met Marti and her family, who are my family by marriage (YEA!!!!) over the summer. That was wonderful. This weekend, Laura was in Waukesha Wisconsin, 2hrs or so north of Chicago, at the Highland Scottish Festival. She was "peddling her wares," so PC and I drove up to meet her. She and her partner, S, make many many beautiful traditional Scottish pieces, using the tartan plaids specific to each clan. I learned a lot about how, just by looking at the colors and the plaids, one can determine which family a person belongs to.

We saw some really great people, events, and clothing too. We were fortunate enough to catch the end of the caber toss. If you're unfamiliar, people, typically men, but I'd be willing to bet there are some women that participate in this event, hoist a tall pole, shorter than a telephone pole, but still incredibly large and heavy. They hoist this pole and then toss it as far as they can. The winner, obviously, is the participant with the farthest distance. Sadly, I was too late to get pictures of this. They also had a children's area where the kids could try their hand at this sport. Not to worry...they weren't using telephone poles, theirs were considerably shorter, probably a plastic material and, I'd be willing to be they were hollow also. We also missed the hurling of the Hagis...I'll let you do the research on what exactly makes up a hagis...it's pretty gross. If people aren't hurling it - that would be the tossing variety of hurling -, they're eating it; which, if it were me, would lead to the puking variety of hurling.

We saw people dressed in costume, as you see in the pic at the top, men in kilts, a pipe parade, guys who looked like they just stepped out of Braveheart, women and men who were dressed in Renaissance wear, dogs, great people, and beer! OH, and again, sadly I don't have a pic, but we saw guys in kilts in Harley jackets and leather - a combination I thought was absolutely fantastic! The pipe parade - in this picture, was amazing. The music was incredible. Even if don't have bagpipe music loaded in your iPod, you would have enjoyed this. It's amazing that such an instrument, one that people typically cringe at the sound of, can create such a beautiful sound, and then to have many of them playing at the same time....it really was cool.

The best part, by far, though, was meeting Laura. We walked around the fair, talked about her girls, my kids, Marti (yes, dear, we talked about you - especially when we saw the guys in the kilts and the Harley wear!). She explained to us the Scottish plaids, some of the traditions, about the fairs that she does...She is currently working with a bride to create a wedding dress - I'm assuming it's pretty close to its fruition since the wedding is next Saturday. Here's a pic of the prototype for the dress, as well as some other pics - check out the one of PC and the sailor suit...can you say Little Lord Fauntleroy? Meem - I might have this one enlarged for you and, of course, we'll get a matching one for ET!

Tomorrow I'm off to work, and then off to 4th grade. I'm going to be in SmallBoy's classroom in the afternoon reading his "All About Me" book with him, and sharing what it's like to be an Aspie with his class. They've all been wonderful and understanding and compassionate all these years, but I think they're finally getting to that age where they're going to star asking questions and wondering why SmallBoy is the way he is. I can only hope for half of the success that Marti and Child have had with this concept. I'll try and get some pictures and tell you all about the experience. I promise I'll get the next part of the Home Series posted soon. I haven't quite finished it yet, but it's coming. Also, stop on over by the band's myspace and give us a listen. Thanks to those of you who have stopped by! Feel free to leave a comment or a message on the space and let us know what you think. We're hoping to get this band rolling like a runaway train! I hope you all had wonderful weekends! Tell me about them!!!!!!!!!